Which army had the most effective/deadly grenades during WW2?

Which army had the most effective/deadly grenade during WW2?

  • German Army

    Votes: 23 38.3%
  • Italian Army

    Votes: 1 1.7%
  • Japanese Army

    Votes: 3 5.0%
  • US Army/Marine Corps

    Votes: 18 30.0%
  • British Army

    Votes: 12 20.0%
  • Red Army

    Votes: 1 1.7%
  • Other

    Votes: 2 3.3%

  • Total voters
    60

Deleted member 1487

Didn't German and American troops prefer using each others grenades - the Germans preferred the small size of the American ones whilst the Americans preferred the increased throwing distance of the German ones?
I've never heard this; the Germans already had their egg grenade, so why would they care about the American one?
 
According to my grandfather,

the Italian grenades were very deadly. Not so much for the targets, per se, but for the thrower.
 
The British Mills bomb was roughly the same weight as a cricket ball, so it was easy to train recruits (from the upper classes) how to throw.

The USA waited until the Vietnam War before they introduced a 40 mm grenade that weighed about the same as a baseball. Early 40 mm grenades were launched from single-shot M79 "Bloopers." Eventually the M79 was replaced by M203s bolted under the barrels fo assault rifles. Most modern infantry sections include a grenadier or two.
40 mm grenades are now largely fired from crew-served, belt-fed, automatic grenade launchers. Most of those grenade launchers are far too heavy to be man-packed, so are bolted to vehicles.

The German potato-masher increased range because the longer handle increased the radius and release velocity of the grenade. At the same time, WM also issued egg-shaped grenades.

Officers discouraged firing enemy weapons, especially grenades. Part of thet official ban was because of various fuse lengths and the risk of instantaneous fuses.

For weights or blast radia, look on Wikipedia or any one of a dozen historical websites.

If you are sceptical of Italian or Japanese grenades, just look at some of the scarier inventions from WW1!
 
Most deadly?

The 'Sticky Bomb' one and a quarter pounds of gelatinized Nitroglycerin, with a 5 sec. fuze.

oh, and the sticky coating, so would stick on whatever it was tossed at

407px-Sticky_Bomb-NAVORD_OP1665.png


So you would toss it, it would hit, breaking the glass that kept it circular, allowing more of the stickum to come into contact with the surface.

Then a big bang, the charge acting like a form of HESH.

And you thought the Italian 'Red Devil' grenades were dangerous
 

Tyr Anazasi

Banned
The Wehrmacht sometimes "lost" grenades. They were prepared to explode in the moment the Allied thrower pulled the trigger.

The Stielhandgranate was in service within the Swiss forces until a few years ago, BTW.
 

TinyTartar

Banned
Keep in mind that the US developed White Phosphorous grenades and mass produced them like no other country did. These were very effective in almost all environments, from cave clearing in the Pacific (the US was VERY good at cave clearing, coming up with some truly brutal ways of doing it, including napalm use, white phosphorous grenades, sealing with cement, collapsing with dynamite, etc.), to mass use in the Battle of the Bulge.

An interesting anecdote I came across once talked about how one of the battalions of the 99th ID during the fighting on the Elsenborn Ridge at the start of the Battle of the Bulge repelled a German Mechanized attack by having almost every man in the forward most company lob white phosphorous grenades at the same time down the hill, creating a horrible mass effect of burning the Infantry off of the tanks they were riding on and actually corroding steel on the Hanomags. This broke up the entire attack on the 99th portion of the ridge for a few crucial hours.
 
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Keep in mind that the US developed White Phosphorous grenades and mass produced them like no other country did. These were very effective in almost all environments, from cave clearing in the Pacific (the US was VERY good at cave clearing, coming up with some truly brutal ways of doing it, including napalm use, white phosphorous grenades, sealing with cement, collapsing with dynamite, etc.), to mass use in the Battle of the Bulge.

An interesting anecdote I came across once talked about how one of the battalions of the 99th ID during the fighting on the Elsenborn Ridge at the start of the Battle of the Bulge repelled a German Mechanized attack by having almost every man in the forward most company lob white phosphorous grenades at the same time down the hill, creating a horrible mass effect of burning the Infantry off of the tanks they were riding on and actually corroding steel on the Hanomags. This broke up the entire attack on the 99th portion of the ridge for a few crucial hours.

Any idea what unit this was against?
 
I'd vote for French - better use of rifle grenades than anybody else (the VB Tromblon was almost universal), and were just starting to introduce a highly effective anti-tank rifle grenade with a HEAT warhead when they were forced out of the war. The British copied this with the No.68 grenade, but the French got there first and in greater numbers.
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
Effective and deadly are not at all the same thing.

Grenades can definitely kill at very close proximity, but their big advantage is the shrapnel and blast/shock effect (the famed German "potato smasher" grenade is actually a concussion weapon, doing its work with blast effect and not fragmentation, there was a separate cover, the splinterring, that could be added to change it to a fragmentation weapon). Movies make the basic grenade look like a satchel charge, they aren't.

What a grenade will do, very effectively, is wound and disorientate everyone not under cover within a 15-30 meter radius in the case of fragmentation grenade (with frags going as far as 200 meters), and 2-8 meters for a concussion grenade. Deaths are generally are at very close range, 2-3 meters, or if one is unlucky enough to catch a splinter in a vital bit of real estate or in a position where aid isn't available and and the victim slowly bleeds out. Wounding/concussing is the idea effect for a weapon in that it both greatly reduces the effectiveness of the enemy, especially in a fixed position, and in that is causes enormous logistical impact on the enemy when the have to provide care for a dozen shrapnel wounded troops or troops with traumatic amputations.

Grenades will also have a increased lethality when deployed into a closed space such as a bunker or inside a vehicle, the enclosed space maximizes the concussive effect and increases the likelihood of a lethal injury/wound.

Nasty little critters.
 
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Tovarich

Banned
The British Mills bomb was roughly the same weight as a cricket ball, so it was easy to train recruits (from the upper classes) how to throw.
Erm, we all do cricket in school, it's not only double-barreled in-breds.

Indeed, Harold Larwood, a Notts coal miner, would have been ideal for training in use of grenades, except his ability to actually place one at the feet of a German would have been regarded as 'ungentlemanly'. :rolleyes:
 
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